Since his foray into politics over a decade ago, Donald Trump has changed the world. It is undeniable. He has imposed a new language, a new style, breaking all taboos, red lines, and conventions. Everything that was once unthinkable and impossible is now completely routine. Mastering public discourse like no other, in the era of endless scrolling, he has built a quasi-religious social movement from scratch. Step by step, he has colonized the Republican Party, pushed all boundaries to the limit, and set a precedent, with imitators worldwide. But if one thing had to be chosen, and only one thing, to summarize the impact of the President of the United States, the most serious would be the damage, perhaps irreparable, to Americans' trust in the electoral system and the alternation of power.
Right now, across the United States, there is no government official and almost no Republican congressman, senator, governor, or candidate for any office who openly says things like "Joe Biden won the 2020 election." None, except those who are at odds with Trump. It takes a moment to digest the idea and its consequences. When asked directly, as the media does every week, Republicans, who fear their leader's vengeful wrath more than the future of democracy, respond with evasions or ambiguous formulas, such as "Joe Biden took the oath of office" or "they know Biden governed for four years." But, following Trump's example, they do not publicly admit that the elections were fair and that Americans simply sent the billionaire home. Not only politicians. All judicial candidates nominated by President Trump in his second term, "38 without exception," Democrats denounce, refused to say who won the 2020 election or what happened on January 6 in their recent confirmations. Federal judges with lifelong tenure.
Since November of that year, Trump has fueled all kinds of conspiracies about the electoral process, convincing a significant part of his supporters not only that the result was stolen from them but also that the only way Trump could be defeated, yesterday, today, or tomorrow, is if there is a scheme, a plot led by Democrats and left-wing millionaires, such as George Soros. That there is a massive plan for millions of illegal immigrants, people without citizenship, or any form of identification to vote. With mysterious trucks making ballots disappear, voting machines altered in collusion with foreign powers and corrupt officials (a theory that already cost Fox News a $787 million defamation settlement to Dominion and the president's lawyers' fortune like Rudolph Giuliani for the same to electoral workers).
According to data from the Public Affairs Council, only 37% of Americans believed that the 2024 elections would be honest and fair, while 43% have serious doubts about their honesty, transparency, or both, with conservatives being the most skeptical. Understandably, as the president constantly claims that 2020 was a theft. Every week, everywhere. This Wednesday, in an interview with NBC, the journalist asked him if he would trust the results of the upcoming midterm elections in November if Republicans lose control of Congress. Trump, somewhat reluctantly, replied, "I will... if the elections are honest. Look, the last elections went very well for me, some say one of the greatest ever, winning 84% of the counties. But I think there were tricks." On Thursday, at a breakfast with religious leaders on a very significant date on the conservative calendar, he insisted: "They rigged my second elections. I had to win them, I needed it for my own ego. Now I do have a huge ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible."
A few days earlier, appearing on Dan Bongino's podcast, a master of hoaxes and conspiracies who for a few months was the FBI's number 2, before getting bored with daily work and returning to streaming, the president urged to "nationalize the elections". In the US, the electoral process is a matter for the states, and the federal government has no authority, a decision from the time of the Founding Fathers precisely to prevent possible large-scale manipulations. "Republicans should say: 'We want to take control.' We should take control of voting in at least 15 places. Republicans should nationalize the vote," he insisted, pointing to specific cities. "Let's go back to 2020 and look at the facts that are coming to light: rigged and corrupt elections. If we have areas... Look at Detroit, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Look at Atlanta, observe some places, there is terrible electoral corruption. And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should intervene," he insisted, despite the Constitution being very clear on the matter.
His obsession has reached unprecedented levels this week, after another Republican defeat in state elections, this time in Texas. All major events in recent months have been failures for his supporters, and all polls and internal analyses predict a Republican massacre in the House of Representatives by the end of the year and perhaps even the loss of the Senate. This explains his bad mood and haste. "American elections are rigged, stolen, and the laughingstock of the world. Either we fix them, or we will cease to exist. I ask all Republicans to fight for the following to Save America. 1) All voters must show identification. 2) All voters must show proof of citizenship. 3) No mail-in voting except for illness, disability, military service, or travel," he wrote on Truth Social on Friday.
It's not just talk. There is a recurring saying in Washington that critics of Trump take what he says too literally but not seriously enough, while his supporters take everything very seriously but never literally. This is not the case. When it comes to electoral matters, the president must be taken very seriously and very literally because, in addition to speaking, he acts. And his most powerful followers replicate it. "You are absolutely right!" Steve Bannon, the great guru of the global alternative right, told the opposition in a video. "We will have ICE surrounding the polls in November! You can complain and cry all you want, but we will never allow elections to be stolen from us again," he insisted. "If we lose the elections, some will go to prison, including myself," he goaded the next day.
According to Gallup, in the days leading up to the November 2024 elections, only 57% of Americans claimed to have "a lot or some confidence" that votes would be cast and counted correctly. Although similar figures have been maintained since 2008, there is currently a wild partisan gap of 56 percentage points, as 84% of Democrats believed everything would be normal, but only 28% of Republicans trust the cleanliness of the process and the security of their vote.
In March, Trump signed an executive order pressuring for profound changes in the electoral process, including the requirement to present conclusive proof of citizenship on election day or the demand that all mail-in ballots be received before the polls close on election day, against the practices of some states that allow counting if they arrive later, especially in the case of military personnel. The courts have already ruled on this, saying it is not admissible. "In short, our Constitution does not allow the president to unilaterally impose changes to federal electoral procedures," wrote District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington last week, preventing certain federal agencies from requesting citizenship when distributing voter registration forms.
The darkest scenarios are not hypothetical exercises. In early January, the Department of Justice admitted that a DOGE employee (the agency that Elon Musk led for a few months and had access to almost all levels of the administration, including private data from hundreds of millions of people) embedded in the Social Security Administration "signed a 'Data Electoral Agreement,' as an SSA employee," with a lobby whose "stated goal was to find evidence of electoral fraud and overturn election results in certain states."
In interviews, rallies, and on his social media, Trump has gone even further. In August, he warned that he wanted to eliminate the use of mail-in voting, one of his long-standing obsessions, and even hinted at banning the use of voting machines. Likewise, he threatened to withdraw federal funds from states that, like California, which gives the most Electoral College votes in presidential elections and is a Democratic stronghold, do not change their rules to require at least presenting an ID or driver's license on election day [These states use more complex pre- and post-verification systems, arguing that historically specific identification requirements have been traps by Republicans to limit minority voting].